In our ongoing efforts to be even more and more lackadaisical with these Christmas newsletters, we completely skipped doing last year's to see if anyone would notice. And when no one said anything, we knew that we had achieved complete irrelevance!

Emboldened by the complete lack of interest, we'll dispense with the usual year-end bragging and cute pictures of children, pets, and/or vehicles and instead describe how our life isn't particularly remarkable, with equally boring photos.

First though, a quick recap of 2004, which we would rather forget (which, now that we're going to proceed to tell about it, means that we want to remember it just enough to complain). There were unexpected expenses like a horendous heating bill for the Vermont winter and a camera stolen on a trip to Montreal. There was Wendi's very difficult miscarriage (on the day our landlord gave us 30 days notice to move out and in the same week Adam's grandfather died). And then we put all of our belongings in storage for what was supposed to be six weeks in preparation for a move closer to family, which then turned into a six-month vagabond existence, moving from Vermont to Utah to South Carolina to Atlanta, culminating in Adam quitting his job in disgust. Good riddance 2004!

In February we moved from Atlanta to Utah where we purchased Adam's great aunt's 70-year-old home in Sugar House. Five months later (and three months after Adam had originally promised), we moved into our beautifully remodeled home at the end of July, just two weeks before Abraham Hanks Dunford was born August 7, 2005. Labor was a mere 1 hour 40 minutes and easy as pie. :-) In case you're thinking Wendi is lucky, let her tell the horror birth story of Alison in 2002 and know that it was a miracle and a blessing that "Abe the Babe" was so easy.

P.S. In case you are wondering, we are not giving all our children "A" names due to some patriarchal kick from Adam—it's just a weird fluke. Wendi thought about changing Abe's name to Zabraham to avoid the accusation, but we already got his Social Security card and after that there is no going back.

Adam: Adam switched jobs twice and is now very happy working for a company called Primary Intelligence here in Utah. He's grown his annual mountain man beard and has his everlasting afro and is feeling sassy. Adam turned the big 30 this year and reports that "it's not that bad, it's a lot like 29 really, except there's a lot more depression."

Wendi: Besides giving birth and doing all the laundry all the time, Wendi started working a few hours a week as a therapist again. It's been good for her to use her mind for something other than trying to prevent her 3-year-old from sitting on the baby's face. It also makes her continually grateful for the "normal" family she was brought up in. Wendi also turned 30 and is feeling really good about the gray hair and wrinkles.

Alison: Ali is doing really well. She hit some major milestones in 2005: talking non-stop, throwing fits, sleeping in a big girl bed, starting pre-school and galloping. We also inaugurated "time-outs" just after her 3rd birthday (she honestly didn't need them before then). Unfortunately, she thinks it's really funny to sing "Love at Home" while in time out.

Abraham: Abe is great. He is very calm and happy, but has his moments, usually when his sister is smothering him. She calls it love, we call it "homicide." We are trying to take as many pictures of his face as we can, so one day we can show him "how his face used to look before his sister got to him."

We hope you know that we love you and appreciate you and no matter what comes your way, we hope to be of support and love to you as so many of you have been to us.